Thursday, March 26, 2015

Earlier
this week, Cleveland Tea Party Patriots learned about the initiatives to require
Photo IDs in order to vote. Chris Long addressed the issue as it concerns voter
fraud as opposed to voter integrity. Ohio voters can take a look at a recent development
on a voter ID law in Wisconsin, via Hot Air:

POSTED AT 12:01 PM ON
MARCH 23, 2015 BY ED MORRISSEY

Or maybenot such a surpriseafter
all. The path to today’s Supreme Court decision to refuse an appeal by the ACLU
against Wisconsin’s voter-ID law has beenstrewn with appellate decisionsthat supported its implementation,
althougha last-minute stay by SCOTUSkept it out of play for the midterms.
The law will fully take effect for the 2016 election, which may complicate
efforts by Democrats to keep the state blue:

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday left intact a new
Republican-backed law in Wisconsin that requires voters to present photo
identification when they cast ballots.

The court declined to hear an appeal filed by the American Civil
Liberties Union, which challenged the law. …

A federal judge blocked the state’s voter ID law in March 2012
soon after it took effect and entered a permanent injunction in April, finding
the measure would deter or prevent a substantial number of voters who lack
photo identification from casting ballots, and place an unnecessary burden on
the poor and minorities.

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the decision and
subsequently ruled in October that the law was constitutional. Wisconsin’s
Supreme Court upheld the voter ID law in a separate ruling.

The SCOTUS stay in October had more to do with the timing of the
law, thanks to the scheduling of the challenges through the courts. Regardless,
the election still went in favor of Scott Walker and the GOP, preventing
Democrats from repealing the voter-ID provision before it could come into
effect.

This will put a
huge dent in the Obama administration’s efforts to squelch voter-ID laws in
other states. In order togrant certiorari, the ACLU would have needed four justices
to vote to add it to the docket. The fact that they couldn’t even move the
liberal wing to unite against a voter-ID law shows that the justices consider
the issue settled. Requirements for identification at polling stations are
legitimate, in the eyes of the court, as long as enough options for no-cost
qualifying ID exist to keep the poor from being disenfranchised.

The dismissal of this challenge to the law will also help boost
Walker’s efforts outside of Wisconsin. He’s known for reforming the
public-employee unions, balancing the budget, and most recently for signing
Right to Work legislation even if he advised the Republican-controlled
legislature to move more slowly on the latter. Some forget that Walker backed
the voter-ID legislation as part of his reform package that got him elected in
2010, and then reconfirmed in 2012 and re-elected again in 2014. It gives
Walker an argument to position himself as the reformer who has a real track
record of conservative change in a purple state, change that could turn the
state red for good.

The Wisconsin state elections board says it is awaiting direction
from the state Department of Justice about what comes next now that the U.S.
Supreme Court has refused to hear a challenge to the state’s voter
identification law.

The American Civil Liberties Union asked a federal appeals court
to block implementation of the law for the April 7 election.

If the ACLU gets its waiver, it had better enjoy it — because it
will be its last.

Update: It’s more
accurate to say that the refusal to grant cert in this case upholdsthe law rather than approves it,
although functionally it’s the same thing. I’ve changed the headline from
“approves” to “upholds.”

Sunday, March 22, 2015

With cyber-snooping that would make communist China & agents of the former KGB giddy with glee, Pearson and a slew of Common Core cyber-snooping companies, are monitoring your children's lives - even at home.

Hiding behind the innocuous excuse of "monitoring social media to check for leaks on test questions,"some of the snooping programs being used, along with being able to monitor any inappropriate on-line comments, have the ability to identify which students fritter away hours on Facebook and which buckle down to homework right after dinner.

Responding to this big brother cyber-snooping in the name of "education," the American Federation of Teachers have started a petition (Click Here to Read) demanding that the Bill Gates funded Common Core Komrade's at Pearson stop spying on our children.

Bent over their computers in Salt Lake City, a dozen cyber sleuths scan the vast reaches of the Internet for contraband. Only, they’re not hunting traffickers of drugs or sex.

It’s standardized testing season across the U.S. — and they’re on the lookout for student tweets about the tests.

The web patrol team works for Caveon, a test security company charged with protecting the integrity of new Common Core exams developed by the publishing giant Pearson. To that end, they’re monitoring social media for any leaks about test questions. News of the surveillance broke this week, sparking a firestorm. The American Federation of Teachers even circulated a petition demanding that Pearson “stop spying on our kids.”

But Pearson is hardly the only company keeping a watchful eye on students.

School districts and colleges across the nation are hiring private companies to monitor students’ online activity, down to individual keystrokes, to scan their emails for objectionable content and to scrutinize their public posts on Twitter, Facebook, Vine, Instagram and other popular sites. The surveillance services will send principals text-message alerts if a student types a suspicious phrase or surfs to a web site that raises red flags.

A dozen states have tried to limit cyber snooping by banning either colleges or K-12 schools, or both, from requesting student user names and passwords, which could be used to pry open social media accounts protected by privacy settings. Among those taking action: California, Illinois, Michigan and Utah.

At least five other states, among them New York and Maryland, are considering similar laws this session, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

But such laws protect only accounts marked as private. Many kids post publicly to build up their online followings.

And when they do, companies with names like Social Sentinel, Geo Listening, Varsity Monitor and UDiligence are there to read them.

The rise of online student monitoring comes at a time of rising parent protests against other forms of digital surveillance — namely, the vast quantities of data that technology companies collect on kids as they click through online textbooks, games and homework. Companies providing those online resources can collect millions of unique data points on a child in a single day. Much of that information is not protected by federal privacy law.

School administrators don’t tend to be too interested in that data, because it’s far too granular for them to make sense of it until an ed-tech company mines it for patterns.

But some principals, coaches and college presidents are acutely interested in student tweets.

Enter the surveillance services, which promise to scan student posts around the clock and flag anything that hints at bullying, violence or depression. The services will also flag any post that could tarnish the reputation of either the student or the educational institution. They’ll even alert administrators to garden-variety teenage hijinks, like a group of kids making plans to skateboard on school property.

Some of the monitoring software on the market can track and log every keystroke a student makes while using a school computer in any location, including at home. Principals can request text alerts if kids type in words like “guns” or “drugs,” or browse websites about anorexia or suicide. They can even order up reports identifying which students fritter away hours on Facebook and which buckle down to homework right after dinner.

Other programs scan all student emails, text messages and documents sent on a school’s online platform and alert school administrators — or law enforcement — to any that sound inappropriate.

The more comprehensive services attempt to break down anonymity offered by sites like Twitter and YouTube, where students don’t have to display their real names. Analysts cross-reference photos, map friend networks and even try to deduce class schedules from the timing of social media posts in order to unmask students who use pseudonyms online.

Sometimes the monitoring is covert: One company advertises that its surveillance software, known as CompuGuardian, can run on “stealth mode.” At the other extreme, some high schools and colleges explicitly warn students that they are being watched and advise them not to cling to “a false sense of security about your rights to freedom of speech.”

During standardized tests, the monitoring kicks up a notch. Several major assessment developers, including ETS, ACT and Smarter Balanced, told POLITICO that they do exactly what Pearson hired Caveon to do: Scan the web for any breaches in security, such as a photo of a test question or a Facebook post describing an essay prompt.

State officials often conduct their own sweeps of the Internet as well during testing season.

But it’s the day-to-day posts that those in the business of student surveillance find most illuminating.

Chris Frydrych, the CEO of Geo Listening, says his service routinely alerts school principals to students whose posts indicate they’re feeling particularly stressed or angry. He also points administrators to students who share too much personal information online, leaving them vulnerable to cyber predators.

Boasts about cheating. Dares to act recklessly. Taunts. Threats. Trash talk about teachers. For $7,500 per school per year, his service will scoop it all up and report it all to administrators.

“Our philosophy is, if someone in China can type in your child’s user name and see what they’re posting publicly on social media, shouldn’t the people who are the trusted in adults in a child’s life see that information?” Frydrych said.

He responds to critics who worry about privacy violations by quoting a student tweet he spotted while monitoring a school: “Twitter is not your diary. Get over it.”

Many education officials are uneasy with such services. “It’s not considered politically correct,” said Barbara-Jane Paris, past president of the National Association of Secondary School Principals. “It upsets students and stakeholders because they feel like they’re being spied on.”

But to some school administrators, cyber surveillance seems a natural extension of the age-old practice of deploying adult monitors to keep kids in line during lunch and recess. (Social Sentinel plays on that sentiment with its slogan: “Don’t leave the digital playground unattended.”)

“All the information is out there,” said David Jones, the president of Safe Outlet Corp., which markets the CompuGuardian software. The key, he said, is helping harried administrators sort through the enormously rich — and astoundingly intimate — digital trails each student unknowingly creates.

Is the principal concerned about kids goofing off in class? He can look at every program every student has installed on school laptops. Or he can track their web searches. Is he worried about bullying? He can snoop on online chats — reading both the student’s side of the conversation and any responses. Principals can even use the surveillance tools to figure out if they’re wasting money on apps no one uses.

“Everyone would just like for this to go away, but it’s not going to,” said Dan Domenech, executive director of AASA | The School Superintendents Association. “All the kids are on some form of social media now. You can’t ignore it.”

In the affluent suburban community of Deerfield, Ill., Superintendent Michael Lubelfeld signed up for a service called Gaggle, which scans student email and attachments, text messages, discussion boards and documents for words or images deemed inappropriate. The company says it discovers millions of inappropriate words and sends thousands of alerts to school administrators each year.

In Deerfield, Gaggle has unearthed just one serious incident in the past the 18 months — an eighth-grader emailing a nude photo of herself, Lubelfeld said. The student was given counseling. Gaggle has also notified Lubelfeld about a handful of less alarming incidents, such as the time a student tried to email a friend a photo of her baby brother with his naked bottom visible.

Lubelfeld also uses separate surveillance system, Hapara, that lets teachers see exactly which web pages kids have open when they’re using the school’s computers. The system, which costs $6 per student per year, also lets teachers take screen shots of a student’s computer or remotely shut down an inappropriate site, such as a video game. That system, too, has turned up few violations.

If nothing else, Lubelfeld said, it tends to keep the students in line: “Once the children realized that the teachers could use Hapara, they’ve pretty much stayed on task,” he said.

Other administrators, however, shy away from surveillance.

Hundreds of students follow the Twitter account of Jason Markey, the principal at East Leyden High School in Franklin Park, Ill. But Markey tells them all he will never follow them. If someone calls his attention to a student tweet that is offensive or frightening or abusive, he’ll absolutely take action, Markey said. Yet he most emphatically does not want to be in the business of cyber stalking his students.

“They need to know there is a separation,” Markey said. “Just because there are [surveillance] tools out there doesn’t mean that I have to look closer at what they’re doing online. I want to give them their space.”

Pearson’s monitoring program, first disclosed by New Jersey blogger Bob Braun, sparked anger from parents and teachers in part because the company has become a symbol of the controversial changes sweeping through public schools, such as the emphasis on high-stakes testing and the shift to the Common Core academic standards.

Irate parents and teachers have peppered social media with attacks on Pearson, many of them using the hashtag #Pearsoniswatching. The American Federation of Teachers has joined in, circulating a petition that features a creepy photo of a man in trench coat, fedora and sunglasses staring out a car window. The first line of the petition: “Big Brother really is watching.”

Pearson’s practice is not at all unusual. Only one testing vendor contacted by POLITICO, the American Institutes for Research, said it does not monitor social media. All others said they routinely scan such sites to look for breaches in test security.

They said they examine only public posts, not posts hidden behind privacy walls. And they said they use public sources, such as a Facebook account linked to a Twitter site, to verify students’ identity. If an inappropriate post is spotted, the companies generally contact state education officials, who reach out to the student’s school district to seek help taking down the post.

In a statement, Pearson adamantly rejected the notion that it is spying on students. “Absolutely not,” the company said.

In response to parent concerns, states using Pearson’s new PARCC exam did ask the company to stop cross-checking the names of students suspected of making inappropriate posts against the company’s list of registered test-takers. And New Jersey officials said Thursday that they would review the monitoring process to make sure student privacy is not compromised.

“The accounts Pearson is looking at are, by definition, public accounts with no expectations of privacy,” said Jacqueline Reis, a spokesperson for the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

With the uncertainty of the health exchanges in the courts, the outcome of any ruling, even if in our favor, will not completely rid Ohio citizens from the chains of Obamacare.

As we continue our call for a full repeal of Obamacare, it is important that, when doing so, we also continue our fight for healthcare freedom in Ohio with support and passage of the Health Care Compact (HB 34).

Currently, the Health Care Compact (HB 34) is in the Ohio House State Government Committee. To read the text of HB 34, click here. To read the Legislative Services analysis of HB 34, click here.

Please contact the below GOP members of the House State Government Committee and respectfully request that they support the Health Care Compact (HB 34) and put Ohioans in charge of their own health care destiny.

With your support and immediate action, we can move one step closer to achieving our goal of true health care freedom for all Ohio citizens!

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

As the budget process in Ohio moves forward we want to share some areas where the grassroots groups in Ohio can try to make an impact. Below is a detailed outline on how your group & members can get involved in the process & immediately make an impact.

While many are concentrating on Governor Kasich's proposed budget, we must understand this is only a spending wish list of what Kasich wants from the Ohio Legislature. We have a choice of stomping our feet over Kasich's requests or we can inject ourselves in the actual budget process as it moves forward.

The Ohio House is in the process of conducting budget hearings on HB 64 (Main Operating Budget FY2016 - FY2017) and will put forth a budget of their own. This is an area where we can inject ourselves and have an immediate impact. As part of this process, Sub Committee's of the OH House Finance Committee are conducting hearings on the requested budgets for the State Boards & Commissions in our state.

The first link is for all the State Board & Commissions in Ohio. In the document, it will list the purpose of the Board/Commission, how many members and how they are funded. Not all receive funding. (Be aware - the number of boards & commissions we have is staggering!)

Review how the budgeted funds are being spent - identify wasteful spending. Also do Google searches on the specific Board/Commission to find articles regarding how they operate and other areas where the budgeted funds for that Board/Commission are being spent. Ask - is this spending that should be done by the state?

Contact the Chair of the Sub Committee and request that you be added to the email list for all scheduled hearings for that Sub Committee.

Identify the date your Board/Commission will be giving budget testimony for their funding. Obtain & review the Board/Commission funding request.

Identify the dates of "Interested Party" hearings. This is the public comment period on proposed funding requests.

With the research you did on the funding of your selected Board/Commission - present in person testimony on why it should be opposed/decreased at the "Interested Party" hearings.

Forward the research you conducted with the case on why funding should be opposed and/or decreased and the date of the "Interested Party" hearing on your selected Board/Commission to clevelandteaparty@gmail.com RE: OH Budget.

We will in turn send the info & Interested Party Hearing date out in mass across the state so groups and individuals can use your research to submit in-person & written testimony to oppose/decrease funding for your selected Board/Commission.

Some Sub Committee hearings are already being conducted so time is of the essence. To sign up, please click the following link - http://goo.gl/forms/tHxvn4S0Kv.

Sunday, March 1, 2015

At a recent House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform joint subcommittee hearing regarding how President Obama's recent Executive Actions can further undermine voting integrity in the U.S., Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH) posed questions to Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted about voter fraud. (Click here to watch)

The negative effect President Obama's Executive Action Amnesty will have on voter integrity across the country, along with the devastating costs and effects on our country, cannot be underestimated. And since the integrity of the voting process goes to the core of what we stand for as a country - the importance of protecting & ensuring that integrity must also not be underestimated.

SoS Jon Husted's testimony and recent letter to President Obama clearly shows he hopes voters in Ohio have a short memory. As for Jordan - knowing Husted's role in Ohio's voting fiasco - he should be ashamed for allowing Husted to grandstand!

To be fair, it should be noted that SoS Jon Husted did remove some illegal voters from the rolls in 2012 - 2014. More importantly, it should be noted that in 2005, as then Speaker of the Ohio House, Jon Husted played a major role in defining the current allowable identification for voting in Ohio.

After campaigning in support of Photo-ID's for voting in his 2010 GOP primary for Secretary of State -

- yet once elected Secretary of State, Jon Husted was the single largest road block to having Photo-ID for voting in Ohio.

And for all his efforts to kill this Photo-ID legislation (HB 159), Jon Husted was also commended by Connie Schultz, wife of Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), for standing up to the GOP.In 2013 during the last legislative session, again recognizing anyone with a utility bill was allowed to vote in Ohio, another Photo-ID bill (HB 269) to ensure voter integrity and that only legal citizens were allowed to vote in Ohio elections, was introduced in the Ohio House.
SoS Jon Husted also actively campaigned against this effort requiring Photo-ID for voting in Ohio, which effectively killed HB 269 by keeping the bill stalled in Committee. In June 2014, Husted again expressed his thoughts on Photo-ID's at at Akron Press Club luncheon...

And as recently as November 2014 in an interview with NPR, Jon Husted agreed with his Democrat challenger State Senator Nina Turner that there is no need for photo-ID's for voting in Ohio.
The political theater of Jon Husteds' new found love for Photo-ID's reeks of political hypocrisy from an establishment politician trying to now use the issue of voter integrity to position & recreate himself for his eventual GOP primary run to be Ohio's next Governor.

In fact - since 2005 - through a bill (HB 234) passed under then Speaker of the House Jon Husted, an individual has been able to use a utility bills as an acceptable form of ID for voting in Ohio.

Meaning, since proof of citizenship and/or a valid social security number are not required to have a utility turned on in your name, any illegal immigrant able to produce a utility bill has been able to vote in Ohio since 2005.So as you can see, Jon Husted, helped create the problem, he did nothing about it and he worked against efforts for Photo-ID. Now - "Ohio's Happy Hypocrite" - Jon Husted only supports them when he needs to move to the "right" again. The integrity of the voting process and voting in general has been nothing more than a political football for many of the Democrats & Republicans in our state for far too long! (It should be noted that State Senator Nina Turner DID support Photo-ID's for voting registration in a 2013 Plain Dealer article.) And because of all the Executive Actions and directives taken by President Obama regarding immigration in our country, ensuring voter integrity by enacting Photo-ID requirement's for voting in Ohio & across the U.S. is needed now more than ever before.Without question integrity of the voting process starts with verifying an individual meets the minimum voting requirement(s) - that being - that they are of legal age & a legal citizen of the United States.This starts with a valid Photo-ID showing you are old enough to vote and are a legal citizen of the United States.Please contact your State Representative (click here) & State Senator (click here) in Ohio and let them know you support Photo-ID for voting in Ohio to restore & protect the integrity of our election process.

Through the hard work of many phone calls, emails and the use of social media, the reauthorizing of No Child Left Behind or the Student Success Act (HR 5) was not passed this past week. While this is cause to celebrate, it is important to understand our success was only in DELAYING the Student Success Act (HR 5) from passing - it was not defeated (voted down).We must remain vigilant & continue to contact members of Congress to tell them to NO continuation of NCLB and No on the Student Success Act (HR 5).To contact your member of congress, click here.

House Republicans decided not to vote Friday on their proposed rewrite of the No Child Left Behind law, the Student Success Act, after House leadership struggled to lock down support for the bill and debate over Department of Homeland Security funding eclipsed education plans.The House passed a nearly identical bill in 2013, but discontent with the Common Core academic standards and concerns about federal government intrusion have grown, and conservatives have said they want to get more out of an education bill in the newly Republican-controlled Congress. That left House leadership facing new criticism from the right because the GOP bill omits school vouchers, radical reductions to federal mandates and other right-wing proposals.“My district doesn’t like it. They just feel that we’re moderating No Child Left Behind. They hate No Child Left Behind,” Rep. John Fleming (R-La.) said.It’s not clear when a vote on No Child Left Behind will take place.The wrangling over funding for the Department of Homeland Security, set to run out Friday, complicated matters. The debate over how to handle DHS funding has angered conservative lawmakers — who House leaders will need to vote on the Student Success Act. Handling both votes in one day would have been difficult for lawmakers, several House aides said Friday.And that’s not to say the Student Success Act didn’t have issues of its own: On Thursday night, House leadership was still trying to shore up support for the bill, several GOP aides and lawmakers said. At a Friday morning press conference held by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and others at a charter school in the Anacostia neighborhood of D.C., lawmakers didn’t talk about the Student Success Act and didn’t hold scheduled press availability. House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline didn’t even attend, though he was originally listed to be there: He was on Capitol Hill whipping votes for his bill.Despite anger that has built up over the law’s far-reaching scope, the politics constrained how far to the right Republicans pushing the Student Success Act could go.Kline needed a bill that would pass the House with support from moderates. He has made clear that a bill with private school vouchers would not have the votes to pass the chamber and would not fly with President Barack Obama, who has threatened to veto the House version of the bill.NCLB expired in 2007. The current push to update the law is the first serious attempt at reauthorization since then, but there’s only a short window to rewrite it before the 2016 elections are fully underway and legislative work slows.Senate lawmakers are working on their own version of No Child Left Behind in a bipartisan fashion, with hopes of heading to conference later this year.Kline has been coordinating his approach with Senate education committee Chairman Lamar Alexander, but the Senate leader is on a very different track than Kline. He’s negotiating with committee Ranking Member Sen. Patty Murray on a bipartisan bill that they hope can clear the chamber. Alexander has insisted he’s optimistic about his chances of striking a deal with Murray and wants to get a bill in front of the committee by mid-March.“We’re making good progress,” Alexander said earlier this week. “I’m very pleased with the way we’re working with Sen. Murray right now.” With Alexander taking the moderate route, it was up to the House to push a bill that’s as conservative as possible to set the party up in a strong position for the potential conference — but without ostracizing the White House altogether.So House Republicans supporting the bill have had little choice but to play to the center of the party. The House took up over 40 amendments but didn’t consider any proposals that would have added heavy doses of conservatism. An amendment pushed by Heritage Action that would allow states to opt out of the law’s requirements altogether but still receive federal funds was left on the cutting room floor when the bill went through the House Rules Committee. Heritage and The Club for Growth both strongly opposed the bill.“It’s a good thing that at least the train has been stopped at the station for now and maybe there’s some time to go back and rethink this,” Club for Growth Communications Director Doug Sachtleben said.There were signs as the week progressed that House leaders were trying harder to turn some of the “no” votes. Language slipped into the bill Thursday that included new provisions barring school-based health centers from distributing information on abortions, for example. The abortion language did not reflect a major change to education policy — and it could easily get stripped out of the bill down the line — but it catered to the right.As of Thursday night, House leadership was still not sure whether it had the votes needed to pass the bill, several lawmakers and GOP aides said.In the end, it appears, they didn’t. At least not this week.Democrats, meanwhile, balked at Republicans’ bill, and at Alexander and Kline’s optimism about a potential compromise on education. The White House veto threat called out a provision that would allow education funds for low-income students to follow students as a particularly harmful measure. Democrats say the net effect of the provision would be to drain billions of dollars from poor school districts, where the funds are needed most.“The goal here isn’t to pass a bill — it’s to pass a good bill,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said this week.Education doesn’t always divide along party lines, but current differences between leadership of the two parties are vast. Republicans want to cede more control to states and localities to make decisions on education and dump many defined programs.To Democrats and the civil rights community, stripping the federal role out of education would signal a return to times before No Child Left Behind, when many states didn’t even collect data about the achievement gap between poor and minority students and their peers. Democrats want the bill to retain strong accountability measures and would like to see a new title in the bill devoted to early education.House Democrats have also criticized Kline’s approach to passing the Student Success Act: There wasn’t a single hearing on the bill in the new Congress. (The House education committee has held many hearings on the bill in previous years.)The Student Success Act “turns the clock back on educational progress and jeopardizes the civil rights of young people,” House Education and the Workforce Committee Ranking Member Bobby Scott said this week.